You're Dead to Me - Joan of Arc

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

Delusion or divine intervention? Learn about Joan of Arc’s super sewing skills, her badass credentials, and the story of why it took nearly half a century for her to become a saint. If you think it���s tough being a woman now, find out what it was like in 1400s France. Joining historian Greg Jenner to learn about Joan are comedian Catherine Bohart of The Mash Report, and Dr Helen Castor, medieval historian and author of The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth. Script: Greg Jenner Research: Emma Nagouse Producer: Dan MorelleA Muddy Knees production for BBC Radio 4

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Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, a history podcast for people who don't like history, or at least people who forgot to learn any at school. My name's Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author, and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. I'm the guy who puts history in a silly wig and clown shoes that makes it tap dance in the office. In this show, I'm always joined by an expert historian with a passion for the past and an A-grade comedian with a penchant for puns. We get them to chat, you learn some stuff. It's a very simple format. Today, we are crossing the English Channel, donning our suit of armour, and going to war with France's patron saint, Joan of Arc. Now, I should at this point mention I'm half French, and my mum raised me to be a proud Frenchman.

In History Corner, she's one of the BBC's finest history broadcasters. You'll have seen her on the telly all the time and on Radio 4. She's also the acclaimed biographer of several medieval women, including Joan of Arc, which is pretty handy. It is the splendid Dr Helen Castor. Hi, Helen, Thanks for coming. Hello. Thank you for having me. And in Comedy Corner, she's a classically trained actress

and the rising star of stand-up. You'll have seen her on The Mash Report, 8 Out of 10 Cats, and in a truly extraordinary episode of Roast Battle, where she and her girlfriend, Sarah Keyworth, savagely ripped the piss out of each other for about five minutes. And it is so funny and brutal, and you should watch it. It's on YouTube. It is the wonderful Catherineatherine bohart hello did you agree in advance

to be savage to each other oh yeah we wouldn't have done it if we thought it was going to ruin us that we if anything are that mean to each other too often so we just got paid that time it was nice now katherine you're a nice irish girl i'm assuming you were raised we shouldn't start with lies but yes i was raised catholic of course I was, yes. Does that mean that Joan of Arc, you kind of have a bit of an awareness already? I feel like I have a lot of preconceptions about good old Joan, partly because I studied history, never her, but I studied medieval history at uni. And then I was, I shouldn't have said that because I'm going to make a fool of myself in a moment. Being like, because I don't remember any of it. I wasn't a very good student.

And I was raised in a Catholic home. So obviously I have preconceptions. Also, she's kind of like, I think of her as a sort of feminist archetype. But then I know I have some negative preconceptions, too. So I'm trying not to prejudge old Joan. Also given her name to a leading North American brand of canned beans, if that helps at all, under the slogan, Joan of Arc, the heroic

bean! What? That's so confusing because I love beans but I'm a pacifist? Do I like the beans? I don't know! Okay, fascinating. I mean, what other medieval people could have beans? Definitely... It's quite a medieval food to be fair. less so in a can

but yes sure sure detail historians are such a pedant yeah well you'll find that soon we haven't even started yet all right well let's get on with the show so what do you know we begin as ever with the so what do you Which is where I summarise the kind of clichés and pop culture stereotypes that we have about our subjects. So, in pop culture, Joan of Arc is the peasant girl who had a vision from God, ran around in trousers, cut her head like Justin Bieber, fought as a warrior, liberated France, then had the misfortune of getting burned at the stake for heresy. She's known as the Maid of Orléans, or in French, La Pucelle.

The French love making plays and movies about her. The British like making jokes about her. And pop stars and rock bands like making songs about her. Shout out to Little Mix. And the surprising number of people think she was married to Noah. Different arc, lads. Come on. Keep up.

But is any of this true? Is all of this true? We are going to find out. So, Dr. Helen, we are jumping back to medieval times, days of yore, long ago. When in medieval times? Yes, this is very technical. The olden days. We are going back to medieval times, days of yore, long ago. When in medieval times? Yes, this is very technical. The olden days, we are going back to the olden days. We don't actually know exactly when she was born

because this is way before birth certificates or anything like that, but probably 1412. Okay, so we're talking 600 years ago. Yeah, just over. So we don't know her star sign. Well, the best guess we have is 6th of January. That gets put down as her birthday, but we're not certain.

So probably, does that make her Capricorn? I mean, I don't really know. I have no idea. You went for a joke and then suddenly... I went to you and I was like, wow, god, she knows her star sign. Amazing. Great. Okay, good, good. And what's the family situation growing up? Is she middle class? Is she working class? Is she poor?

Can she read? She is a peasant girl, as you said. She's from a small village in the far east of France. She's not the poorest of the poor by any means. Her parents' house is pretty substantial. It's still there. You can go and visit it. It's been done up a bit since then. But no, she couldn't read, couldn't write. She was as educated as any of the other girls in the village. She knew her Lord's Prayer and her creed. any of the other girls in the village. She knew her Lord's Prayer and her creed. But she looked after animals in the field. She learned to sew and to spin. She was very good at sewing and spinning, she tells us. At her trial, she's asked about her home life and her education. And she says, no one can beat me at sewing and spinning. She was

competitive even at sewing and spinning. Competitive spinning? Who brags about sewing at their trial? Just like, I might have committed this crime, but regardless, I can really do a hem. What? That's crazy. It was a very long trial. I had to find all sorts of stuff to talk about. Yeah, okay, sure, you got to try about something. Yeah, wow.

And presumably she's a big-time Catholic. I mean, she's really into God. I mean, technically everyone's really into God at this point. Everyone in Western Europe is a Catholic, but among catholics she is going for most catholic status i'd say most catholic among the catholics most catholic among the catholics and people who knew her other people who were children when they were all children together in the village said that people you know the boys used to laugh at her for praying

in the fields when the church bells rang and things like that. So notably devout. Catherine, you grew up not just in a Catholic household, but your dad's a deacon. He sure is. Which is like the most Catholic a person can be and have kids. It's pretty peak. Yeah, it is. I went to a Catholic school. I was taught by French Catholic nuns.

But I am not religious in any way. So the fact that her story starts with visions from God, I'm like, all right, okay, let's see. I'm trying not to be biased against her, but I always think it's a beautiful and wonderful coincidence that people who believe in a faith always have visions of that deity. Like, what a happy co-incident.

Can you imagine if you believed in Jesus and then, like, a Sikh God came to you? You'd be like, what a happy co-incident. Can you imagine if you believed in Jesus and then, like, a Sikh god came to you? You'd be like, what a nightmare. But it is fortunate that that always works out, isn't it? It's great. Sorting hat, clearly. So what's going on in France at the time? Because we're talking 600 years ago.

And France now is a country that we all know of in the map. But France then is sort of ripped apart by war. And it's the Hundred Years' War. This was a war between France and England, which had started way back in 1340, when King Edward III of England had claimed that he was the rightful king of France. There was the whole difficulty about the succession to the throne of France at the time, and he sort of stepped forward and said, actually, it should be me,

which, strangely, the French weren't too keen on. But there were periods of very, very intense fighting interspersed with truces and stuff like that. But the essential issue hadn't gone away, which was that the King of England thought he should, in fact, be the rightful King of France. Was there simultaneously a French monarch? There was simultaneously a French monarch.

Very awkward. Very, very awkward. Just checking. Yeah, because that's a little bit more... Yeah, OK,. Just checking. Because like, yeah, that's a little bit more. Yeah. OK, I got you. Yeah. England had by this stage got their hands on most of the southwest of France, the Duchy of Aquitaine and also Calais in the north.

So England had their own port on the northern French coast. Always a handy. You need the duty free, don't you? Calais, you know, the wine, the booze, the fags. It's good for a holiday. I hear you. And wine particularly. I you all the wine the booze the fags good for a holiday I hear you and wine particularly I mean the wine

was an absolutely key thing that was where all of English wine came from because really you don't want to be drinking the stuff we make

over here at that point anyway I know the English wine industry has become a wonderful thing it's wonderful now Helen how dare you

and also the fact they call it the hundred year as well presumably they don't call it that at the beginning because that's really pessimistic That's a later label That is a much later label, yeah

I think you'd get a bit depressed, wouldn't you? Day two of the Hundred Years' War I don't know, Brexit feels like a hundred years It's hard to put your back into it, isn't it? When you think, oh, it's going to be going on for a while My great-grandkids will be fighting this war And nothing will have changed And actually it wasn't literally a hundred

I think it was a hundred and sixteen, isn't it? Something like that. So even the name itself doesn't even do justice to how ludicrously long this war is. They got fed up. They were just rounding it. All right. Now we also have the slightly sad and strange story of a French king who thinks he's made of glass. We do. A mad king.

Yeah. And mad kings, as we know from some of our favourite TV watching, don't tend to produce happy, healthy political situations. And that was certainly the case for Charles VI, who was a very much loved monarch. In fact, his name among his people was Charles the Well-Beloved, despite the fact that he did have intermittent but increasingly frequent psychotic episodes where he didn't even know who he was. He wouldn't wash, he wouldn't dress. He thought he was made of glass and if anyone touched him, he might shatter into a thousand pieces. It's a bit hard for government in a personal monarchy to work

when you're kings in that sort of state. So unsurprisingly, perhaps, factions develop among the French nobility, particularly two factions, one led by the Duke of Burgundy and another that's initially led by the Duke of Orléans until he's horribly murdered in the Paris street in 1407 and his faction ends up being called the Armagnac faction so it's all a bit Stark and Lannister or I suppose in terms of closeness to the throne maybe Baratheon Targaryen but anyway it's nasty it's bloody and a civil war is tearing France apart. And if you don't watch Game of Thrones, lots of violence. Burgundy's.

It's Cardi B versus Nicki Minaj. I was going to say Khloe Kardashian and the Armagnacs are... Basically all of the above. Fine. One great big scrap. And it gets much worse after the Duke of Burgundy is himself horribly murdered

by the son of the king in 1419. So there are political assassinations going on all over the place. It becomes a blood feud, basically. So they kill both of the heads of the factions, but the factions remain? Because the Duke of Burgundy has a son, and because the son of the king has taken over as the leader of the other side. Yeah. Okay, I got you.

It's a big mess. It's a really, really big mess. In the middle of which henry v of england cry god for harry england and st george decides to invade so you have civil war and war with england going on at the same time it's nasty it's complicated stuff so you've got the armeniac on one side the burgundians on the other then the english so france is not really split down the middle it's split three ways, between three separate factions who have a sort of ongoing complicated relationship. Until the Burgundians decide,

because the Duke has been so horribly murdered, they are going to link up with the English. They would rather have the King of England as the King of France than the son of the Mad King, who's the one who's killed their duke. And then to add more complexity to it, Henry V shits himself to death.

I mean, he dies of dysentery. Well, I mean, if you read the Shakespeare play, you imagine he dies heroically. No, he poos himself to death. It's pretty horrible. And then his replacement is a toddler. So France is sort of split three ways. The English king is a child.

It's mad. And then along comes little Joan of Arc. And what does she want? Joan has a very simple message, which is that the king of the Armagnacs, the Armagnac heir to the throne who his father's now died to, is the rightful king. God wants him to be king and has sent Joan to lead his army to

defeat the English and drive them into the sea. So she's pro-Armagnac. Yeah. And that guy is called Charles of Valois. How old is she when she has her first vision? Okay, there's another complication here, which is we only hear the details of this bit much later on. So we have to remember that hindsight and telling a good story may be coming in. Yeah, you're right. It might not be a factual retelling of her visions from God.

That's a very important point. Let's be clear. This is obviously a retelling of what definitely happened with Jesus. What she says definitely happened with Jesus back when she was 13.

She says she was in her father's garden. She saw a light and heard a voice coming from God and the voice told her that god was with her and eventually after a few chats as you do um yeah get it through the weather break the ice yeah exactly talk about this and that's your favorite hip-hop act that kind of stuff he

tells her to go to school be a good girl then eventually and again the latest story is that this is a message that comes through three saints in particular, Michael, Margaret and Catherine, with a little side of Gabriel. Gabriel sometimes turns up, but mainly it's Michael, Margaret and Catherine, she says later. They tell her that God wants her to lead an army to defeat the English and take her king to his coronation. So when a king who is like theoretically in power starts to hear voices. Everyone's like, he's crazy. But when a 13 year old girl is like, a bunch of people in my dad's garden are super keen that you be king.

Everyone's like, that seems legit. Is that just to... That's a very, very good point. Just checking in. And no, they didn't all immediately go, oh my God, Jones. I was going to ask this. So like if a woman,

a young woman of poor political stature and very little economic income says, I'm hearing messages from God, how does she convince anybody to even listen to her? Everyone believes in God and the devil. Everyone knows they can speak in the world. So, it's not the first time that it's happened.

And sometimes God does speak to women. Shock, horror. I mean, it's not the way you think it usually happens. Oh, their problem was that he was speaking to a woman, not that he was speaking to a person. Well, yeah, absolutely. That speaking to a woman, it's not really the usual order of things because men are in charge, right? So talking to a woman is not strictly by the book. But if a woman came forward with a message and if she seemed legit, then that was a possible way God might speak in the world.

And there had been a couple of women in the previous decades who'd come forward with messages, but the messages weren't usually give me an army and send me to fight the English. They were more God wants you to do this, not God wants me to do this. And she takes a while to convince, so she tries to get to the Dauphin, to do this, not God wants me to do this. She takes a while to convince. So she tries to get to the Dauphin, to Charles himself.

And she goes to the nearby town called Vaucouleur. And she meets a soldier there called Robert de Baudricourt and says, take me to the king. And he's like, no. Absolutely not. He's the captain of the town. And this is an Armagnac garrison. So he is loyal to the Dauphin. But he just sends her back to a family and tells her

family to give her a few slaps slap the nonsense out of her I mean she can't possibly be okay now we're talking so there's a reasonable man he's like this kid needs some talking too yeah all right cool I don't necessarily approve of them slapping her around but I see what he's saying okay but then she becomes like a sort of a almost a celebrity like people start sort of going oh have you heard about Joan of Arc? She's magic. Well, people start hearing about her message because she won't shut up about it. She keeps trying to get back to Vaucoulard.

She keeps trying to get someone to take her seriously so that she can get to the Dauphin, who, by the way, is 270 miles away cross country. It's not like she lives next door to the palace or anything. Right. But word does get out. And partly word gets out because the war's going so badly. I mean, the English and the Burgundians are not having a great time. This has essentially

become a war of attrition by this point. Everyone's in a sort of horrible stalemate. But the Armagnacs are in a pretty bad situation, particularly because their dauphin, their king, Charles, really isn't a soldier. He's the kind of bloke who keeps ordering very swanky suits of armor for himself um trying them on and parading around in them and they're not going to war he sounds great he um so he's not particularly charismatic he's not a great general how is this stalemate ever going to be broken it really does it It looks great on Instagram. Yes, great. Actually, when it comes to actually doing anything. So the English are besieging Orléans, which is on the River Loire. And if the English manage to capture Orléans, then the chances are they can push deep into Armagnac territory.

Things might go quite badly for them at that point. So really, you're getting to the stage where they need a miracle and if you're looking around for a miracle then the idea of a teenage girl who says she'll lead your army for you that sounds plausible on the miracle front what else have we got i mean sure okay yeah i yeah sure they are desperate for a miracle. She's like, that's so handy. I just became one. She comes to the attention of the local duke and the local duke we know is in contact with Charles's mother-in-law

who's a formidable brain. If you're looking for a political genius at the heart of this story, it's probably Yolande. She knows exactly what she's doing. And she, we think, we don't have all the behind the scenes correspondence, but she sends for Joan. So Joan gets escorted across country, those 270

difficult miles, including through hostile territory, by six men at arms. She's brought all the way to the court at Sheenal. And this is the first time she cuts her hair and starts to wear trousers? That's it. because she's got to make this difficult journey across country

much safer if you're dressed as a man safer because it's a disguise safer from sexual assault also in practical terms because you actually tie your hose onto your doublet if you're in a dress with no underwear you're really pretty vulnerable

it's also much harder to ride across country and you're having a dress with no underwear, you're really pretty vulnerable. It's also much harder to ride cross-country and you're having to ride at night. Also, she's a young girl travelling with six soldiers. She's got to try and protect herself from them as well as hostile forces. So yes, the townspeople of Vaucoulard give her an outfit of men's clothes and she cuts her hair into that

so fashionable pudding bowl shape above the ears. It's very Beatles, isn't it? I don't hear zero shade on what I've just heard it described as basically the lesbian go-to look. I'm like, great, good for you, Joan. No, it's great. Do not apologise.

I'm so excited. If it wasn't for the staunch Catholicism, I would assume that's why she did it. But it sounds like she was just trying to protect herself from a hideous degree of gendered sexual assault. Woo, fun times. Gotta love history. Go, Joan.

Comedy show. I'm more endeared towards her now that she's a badass. There you go. All it takes is a strong haircut and I'll be much more invested in a woman. Carry on. So she turns up and she is now going to meet the king in waiting. He's called the Dolphin, which means the prince,

but she thinks he's going to be the king. He plays a sort of trick, supposedly, to check if she's legit. Now, I don't know if this is true, but can you tell us the story? Story goes that Joan is brought into the middle of the court at Chinon, the great palace where Charles has his court. And she is pointed at the man wearing glittering golden clothes on the throne at the head of the room. And she looks at him and says, no, that's not the Dauphin. And they say, yes, it is.

Yeah, look, he's in golden clothes on the throne. That's the Dauphin. She says, no, it isn't. And she goes into the crowd and she picks out someone hiding behind someone else and says, this is the Dauphin and kneels before him. And everyone goes, it's a miracle. It's a miracle she's come.

Because he's been hiding in the crowd. He's trying to check whether she can really recognise the man she's been sent to save by God. So he's doing like pantomime hiding in a crowd and she's like, it's obviously the dude over there. And everyone's like, it's a miracle. And pantomime is exactly the right word because we're told this happens the minute she arrives at Sheenaw.

In fact, it probably happens about a month later after they checked her out in all sorts of ways. The first thing they do is check she's a virgin because obviously God wouldn't be talking through a woman if she... Yes, I'm right with Catherine. I'm very proud of you. Jeez, okay. They literally give her a physical examination. They get some noble ladies of the court to give her a physical examination. They get some noble ladies of the court to give her a physical examination. And then they send her off with the best theologians they can muster for three weeks

to see if the theologians can work out whether she has actually come from God or whether it's actually the devil that's talking to her. Ooh, jeopardy. Devil or God, devil or God. And they can't decide. It's like a comedy show, isn't it? They can't decide. They can't decide. They're like, could go, isn't it? They can't decide. They can't decide.

They're like, could go either way. What? That is exactly what they say. They say, well, we can't find any sin in her. She is a virgin, obviously. That's a big point in her favor. And she seems very simple and very pious. And we can't find any obvious problem.

On the other hand, we also can't tell you for definite that she's from God. So you might want to give her another test. And handily enough, a plausible test has kind of come up in discussion because she said, I'm going to take the king to his coronation. The coronation has to happen at a particular cathedral, which at the moment is in enemy hands. And to get there in the way is the town of Orléans, which is under siege. And she says, right, give me some soldiers. I'll lift the siege of Orléans. So the theologians say, if you like, Your Majesty, you could just give her some soldiers and see what happens.

And basically... Oh my God, they're so gracious. They're like, hey, do you know what you could just do? You could just send her into battle. I'm sure if she dies, she dies. And if she doesn't, we can totally pretend it's because of God. That is exactly it. If it works, she has been sent from God. And if it doesn't work we can totally pretend it's because of God. That is exactly it. If it works, she has been sent from God.

And if it doesn't work, she obviously wasn't. She's given a sort of fighting chance by being given armour and given a horse and given minimal amount of training to stay on it and given a body of men, not a huge army, but some troops to go with her and some provisions for the poor town that's been under siege for six months and so on. certainly the people in orleans absolutely believed in her they'd been told that this miraculous maid was coming to that's what lapucelle means the name that she was giving herself the maid a little bit like the virgin so she's associating herself with these

very powerful i mean she's not saying that she's divine at all but she's saying she's sent by god and the people who need rescuing believe in her and it seems that the troops who went with her were prepared to march under her leadership because otherwise it really would have been a but they were also going to sit in the hostel until she called for them yeah got it okay cool so the french general defending the city is called jean de dunois and his nickname is the bastard of orleans which is a great nickname. He also belongs to the military order of the Porcupines, so he's a bastard and a prick. I think that's a little harsh on poor old Jean.

I know, he's doing all right, but he's a lovely man, really. But he's been defending Orléans for six months, clinging on with these sort of tired soldiers and the people who live there. Joan turns up. He must be thinking, oh, great, just what I need. Here's a child with a sort of small retinue of randoms. But... Actually, as far as we can tell, he's really

pleased because he's been left there on his own to hold this place for months and months and months. Anything is a help. To someone to chat to. And if there's a chance she's been sent by God. And the thing we have to remember at this point is Joan hasn't got this far by accident.

Yes, she's had to attract the attention. She's had to shout and holler and attract the attention of somebody to get her to court. But she has got so much charisma, so much. I was going to say self-belief, but it's self-belief that comes from her belief that God has, in fact, spoken to her. Yeah. That the effect she has on these, the poor battered town, the people are out in the streets trying to touch her as she rides on her white horse in her shining armour with her silken banner with a picture of Jesus on it.

Did she sew that one? She must have sewn something. Come on, champion spinner. OK, cool. And it works. It works. How? In six months they've been besieged.

She turns up. Four days later, victory. Four days. Not bad, is it? Why, what do they do? Well, Joan's tactic, I mean, various people have made arguments about how she was an amazing military commander and she had a great appreciation of the subtleties of warfare.

As far as I can see, her tactic was attack now. And if you've been in this terrible, gruelling, grinding siege for six months to have someone come with some fresh troops, some fresh food and say, right, we're attacking in the name of God. Now, it actually feels great. It's the Oleg on a salt shire of 15th century peasants. Actually, that works. Starts so well and then maybe not so good. We'll get to that. And the equal and opposite thing is happening on the other side,

that the English, who start out going, who's this slut who's turned up running around with soldiers with their legs, you know, on show in these, what's she wearing armour for? She's obviously a whore, they're her pimps. You know, lots and lots of really horrible abuse. Classic lady shaming, sure, sure, sure. They start to get a whore. They're her pimps. You know, lots and lots of really horrible abuse. Classic lady shaming. Sure, sure, sure. They start to get a bit frightened.

Yeah. And four days later, it's extraordinary. They are swept away from Orléans, pushed back into retreat. The city's been rescued. OK, so after she saves Orléans, are the theologians like, fine, it was Jesus. In fact, they're more like, you see, we knew all along. Of course they are. We have to be careful.

But yet now you see that she has, in fact, been sent by God because God, of course, is on our side. I mean, this is the difficulty when you're fighting a medieval war. God's there all the time. You know God's will is at work in the world. So if you get defeated, what on earth does that mean? It can't mean he's on the other side. It just means you've done something wrong for a bit. So they're going, finally, God has spoken.

We're in the right. Victory is ours. This is the beginning of a glorious new world. And then she wins the Battle of Patay, which has nothing to do with delicious duck liver pate. Unfortunately, it's a small town in France. But she wins that. A bit of momentum onward. Does this now mean that Charles gets to be king?

It does. And it also means that not only the theologians are saying we knew all along, but Charles is saying I knew all along. And he is now prepared to put the whole of the biggest army he can possibly recruit at her disposal because her next plan after freeing Orléans, driving the english completely out of the loire valley she's going to take him to be crowned at mass cathedral reams as we call it reams in england because we can't pronounce french yeah but mass is in enemy hands so they have to push a long way across country and as they march at the head of this huge army now, Joan and her king, towns start opening their gates to them

because she's won at Orléans, God seems to be with her, everyone's getting a little bit antsy, even if, you know, they're not sure what's going on, they're worried about it, letters are going around going, what are you doing, should we give in, should we... But she takes him to Reims, she takes him to his coronation. If I was, like, going on celebrity gossip of today, if the king starts rocking around with a younger lady,

but he has a wife at home, were people like, is there a story here? Everyone on the other side was immediately going to sex as a problem. Clearly, clearly she could not be virtuous. How could she? She was wearing men's clothes. And doesn't it say in the Bible, in Deuteronomy, that wearing men's clothes is an abomination unto the Lord, if you're a woman, or vice versa, wearing women's clothes if you're a man. They went straight to the sexual stuff.

And to be honest, Joan's own side were very antsy about this as well. Owen's own side were very antsy about this as well. They had had to write theological treatises saying, yes, I know cross-dressing isn't really allowed, but it's, you know, the New Testament doesn't say that. It's only the Old Testament. And besides which, she needs to for her mission, which is from God. So clearly it's fine. But yeah, there were a lot of raised eyebrows, a lot of very sexualized insults being thrown around. But especially because she's like,

I'm going to need more soldiers. And he's like, sure, have them. And she's like, I'm going to get you to that crown. And he's like, OK, whatever you say, babe. It feels like it. And when he was crowned, she was standing right beside him holding her banner. This is the most sacred moment. He's being crowned with a thousand-year-old holy oil

that's been brought down from heaven to be given to the kings of France. This is why he has to be brought down from heaven is that like uh do they the nightclub yeah do they amazon prime that i don't understand okay yeah so she is absolutely involved in the whole thing and she's right there when he's crowned so uh job done really he's i mean she wanted him to be king. He's king. She can go home, back to the sheep. English are still there. Damn. Do you remember she promised to drive them into the sea? Oh, yeah.

So, no, her job isn't done. At least Joan doesn't think her job is done. Everyone else is beginning to think, do you know what? This was great, this miracle thing. It was really good. You know, the Orléans was good and the coronation was good, but we've got some politics to get on with now. We might actually start negotiating with the Burgundians because if we can prize them away from the English, that's going to make the next stage a whole lot easier.

And Joan's going, no, I must take Paris. We must march on Paris, which is in the hands of the Burgundians. We must attack it and I will take it. And of course, it's a bit difficult to say no to her because she's been right so far. So they okay we'll march on paris they get to paris they're outside the walls of paris which has the greatest fortifications west of constantinople guns all around the top of the walls and they give her one day what well she she um saved orleans in four surely she can save paris in one she's doing miracles, right? That's poor nurse. Come on. Yeah, it didn't work. What a surprise. And she gets injured.

She got shot with a crossbow bolt through the thigh and was still protesting that the attack should continue as she was carried off the field. It's awful. It's horrible. She still believes everyone else has sort of stopped believing and in order to justify stopping believing, they give her an even more impossible task

than the impossible one she's already carried out. So she gets to carry on fighting through the winter of 1429, 1430. But at these little sieges in little out-of-the-way places, she's really a sort of jobbing soldier by this point. And that's a real problem, because if the miracles have stopped happening, why have you got a woman in charge of your troops? Yes. So she finds herself

at a siege in May 1430, a place called Compiègne, which is in Burgundian. It's being attacked by the Burgundians. It's in Armagnac hands. And she does her normal thing.

She rides straight out of the gates to attack the enemy. And this time it doesn't work. She gets cut off, surrounded and captured by the Burgundians who then sell her to the English.

They sell her? Or ransom her. I mean, she's a prisoner of war, so they don't want to give her up for nothing, but the English negotiate and pay a large sum of money to ransom her from the Burgundians. But why are the British so keen to pay so much money for her if she's lost her sort of prize stature?

Because they have to prove that that was never a stature that came from God in the first place. She's made a bit of a fool of them. She's claimed to come from God. She's defeated them at Orleans. She's got her king crowned. They got beaten by a girl. They got beaten by a girl so they've got to prove that she didn't do what she said she'd done all along. They're going to have to

show that actually this was not God speaking through her. God was not on the other side. God was not an Armagnac. He was actually with them all along. And that's why we end up with an ecclesiastical trial for heresy. It's not about secular law. It's about whether God is speaking through this woman or not. So this trial is overseen by a bishop.

He's called Pierre Cochon, who works for the English. So he brings 70 charges against her. And then they kind of drop those to 12 charges. So there are months of interrogations of Joan herself. She's the only witness. They bring her into the castle at Rouen. That's where she's a prisoner, but she's brought into rooms full of learned theologians

to defend herself against this charge of heresy. And as a result of those interrogations, they gather, as you say, to start with 70 charges, but then they distill it down to the 12 that are strongest and most likely to pin her down, to condemn her. Because they really want to show that she is a heretic. This isn't a sort of, yeah, half an hour and we'll say she's guilty. They want to show how wrong she is. And they are

interrogating her about her visions, about what she claims, about her messages from God, about what she's done. And she doesn't, she is extraordinarily brave, articulate, constant in her belief in what she's saying. But she obviously doesn't know the complex theology that's behind their questions and then you have to remember at the end of every day she's taken back to her cell where she's chained by the feet to a big block of wood and there are soldiers outside her door and we're told two soldiers

in her room. This is not an easy situation to make sure that, well she says she's from God what if she escaped or someone tried to bust her room? To make sure that, well, she says she's from God. What if she escaped or someone tried to bust her out? Well, she does try and jump out a window. She did earlier on,

before she was brought to Rouen Castle, twice during the imprisonment while they were preparing for her trial. She had tried to escape twice, once within the building she was being kept in and once by jumping out of a window. She was very seriously injured

and took quite a while to recover goodness so she's very able to withstand that kind of questioning but where she falls down though she doesn't know she's falling down is in the questioning about her visions because this is where she starts talking in detail starts naming saints starts describing their voices and their faces and what she doesn doesn't know, but her interrogators do, is that while angels and saints can appear on Earth, they are essentially spiritual beings. So the more she makes them real and physical and literal, which she's doing to try to demonstrate that her visions were real after all,

the more she's condemning herself out of her own mouth. What a weird stance to take as a believer to be like, whoa, that's too much detail. Everyone knows Catholicism is vague. You keep it vague and we'll believe you. Theologically precise. I mean, this is the kind of age when legendarily theologians are arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. So there are very specific theological positions about angels and they're more or less

going haha she's got this bit wrong depends on the dance i mean if it's tap dancing then you can get quite a few angels on but if it's a tarantella it's a very wide dance she does recant she does at one point say okay you got me now i didn't i made it up i'm not a heretic it's absolutely heart-rending, I think. Yeah, they go all the way through the trial and they find her guilty, which they were always going to do, these 12 charges and so on, and they deliver the verdict and the sentence in public, in the centre of Rouen, outside one of the abbey churches in Rouen.

And the executioner is standing by with his cart ready to take her to the stake. And it's awful to read this bit of the trial, because Joan, it seems, absolutely believed that God was going to save her. That's what kept her going all the way through the trial. You'll see that I'm from God because God's going to save me. I don't know how it's going to happen, but God's going to save me. And at the point when the sentence is given, and she's about to be taken away by the executioner,

she breaks because there's no time left. She tries appealing to the Pope. They say, sorry, you know, that ship sailed. And she says, no, no, I take it back. I will submit. I'll submit. I'll submit. And she has to sign a piece of paper and saying, confessing to her heresy, and she's taken back to the castle,

put in women's clothes, and all her hair is shaved off as a penitent. And she's told she'll be in prison for the rest of her life, which she says she didn't realise because, of course, that's not her freedom. She seems to have thought she would be let go. But they were never going to let her go, never, ever going to let her go. And it's only a few days later that Bishop Cochon is called back to the castle because there's been trouble back at the castle.

And the trouble is? The trouble is she's back in men's clothes and she's back saying she's seen her visions she's recounted her recantation she's undone her how did she get into men's clothes well that's the million dollar question this is the point this few days between the recantation and bishop and bishop koshan being called back where if she suffered violence and sexual violence, it was probably then, because she was back in a dress in a castle full of men. And there's no physical protection.

I know only flimsy layers of cloth, but there's no physical protection in a dress. And later accounts from people who were there do suggest that she was assaulted, possibly during those days, which if she was already in a situation of extreme distress, of course could only reinforce that. And the bit of the trial transcript from when the bishop is called back in, she's still herself, but she's much more confused. She's much less clear and articulate. So she's distressed.

Deeply distressed mind. But the other question I have that is never explained is what were the men's clothes still doing there? If they really wanted her to recount and to, if they really wanted to save her life, why were their men's clothes still there for her to put on? And there's one story that's told again years later that

they more or less manoeuvred her into it, that somebody in the castle, probably the political powers that be, wanted her to burn because there's a story that she got up in the morning and her women's clothes had been taken away and she begged and pleaded for them, saying I'm not allowed to put these ones on. But eventually she needed to relieve herself and

had to put them on. It's possible that that happened or it's possible that she was just so distressed, either at what had happened to her or at having betrayed her visions, having betrayed God visions having betrayed god she she says at this point everything i said was from fear of the fire and it's not true i did still see my visions and so on may 30th 1431 she does goes to the stake and she is burned

in public in front of a gathered crowd in the middle of rouen and then her ashes are tossed into the river so that they can't be collected as sacred relics. No relics must be left. So that's it. She's basically destroyed. The story goes that the executioner was ordered to rake back the fire at the point where her clothes had burned off so that the crowd could see that she was a woman, that she was a human woman,

and then the fire was gathered back up and the whole body was incinerated. Oh, my God. Lovely, isn't it? It's just medieval history. Absolutely horrifying. Yeah, and presumably the French king feels a bit guilty. I mean, Charles must be sort of thinking, ooh, she was kind of my best buddy and now she's burned.

Oh, no. No? Oh, no. Okay. So he's a dick, basically. politically he has to be a dick because if she's been burned then god is definitively not with her so he has to say well she obviously was from god at the point where she won at orlean stood beside me at my coronation but she got too proud she got a bit above herself she got too arrogant she overreached herself so So God has now punished her.

But long story short, the French do win. 1453, English booted out. The Armagnac French win. Well, you know, the French that I care about. But it's worth saying because it's really complicated for the French. Because they end up coming back together under Charles, under Armagnac Charles, through they end up making peace in 14 Charles, under Armagnac Charles, through, they end up making peace in 1435 and then fighting together to boot the English out.

But of course, it's really tricky for all the people who've been supporting the Burgundian French and fighting against Charles all that time. So they have to decide whether to go for truth and reconciliation or whether to go for small war, nothing to see here. It was the English all the time. And they go for that. It was the English. The English were the baddies. We've all been, we've always been French. Bloody Burgundians. Honestly, can't trust them. But so the war ends, 116 years, the Hundred Years' War, and Joan gets a pardon, 1456?

She gets a nullification of the verdict, yeah. That's not as good. Well, in a way it's better. Is it? In a way it's better. They rein? In a way, it's better. They reinvestigate the charges at the original trial and they go very carefully

through what she was accused of, the kinds of heresy she was accused of. Who's they? Under Charles, the French, the now reunified French. The French church? The French,

the reunified French church who are now saying we've all supported Charles all along. And Charles is saying I've been king all along. Just small matter, this that girl who was at my coronation, you might not remember her, but she seems to be on the books as being a heretic. And she can't possibly be because so it's a kind of. What good is that to her?

Administrative putting right. They go and talk to people who'd known her when she was a girl in Dormy. They talk to people who fought with her and they talked to people who were involved at the trial. Strangely, most of whom are now saying, yes, it was terrible. I really wanted to stop it, but there was nothing I could do. I cried when she burned. I mean, we all cried apart from the English. Even some of the English cried

because she was so holy. So there's a lot of there are some very tall stories being told. So 25 years after her death, everyone is like, oh, it's terribly sad, and there's been an administrative error. Administrative error. She wasn't a heretic after all. The verdict is given.

Charles puts a cross up in Rouen Cathedral. Oh, a lady who put a cross up. That's fine. She's a French... Well, she's not a French heroine yet, because she doesn't get canonised until the early 20s. 500 years later. Okay, so in 1920?

1920, she's finally canonised. She's fine out of a canon. As is tradition. Loaded in. Five minutes. Well, she is a heroine straight away for Orléans. That's actually worth saying. Orléans hold on to her from the very beginning.

They celebrate their liberation every year from the very beginning. But it took 500 years to make her a saint because she was such a tricky proposition. She'd been killed by the Catholic Church. I think she's the only Catholic saint to have been killed on a verdict of the Catholic Church. She makes it. She can't be a martyr. That is really awkward, isn't it? She wasn't a martyr.

When she was finally made a saint. Are we the bad guys? She was made a saint as a holy virgin who had lived a life of heroic virtue. Oh, that's beautifully ambiguous. Isn't it? Wow. A virtuous virgin. Well, I mean, that's the end of her life, but that's not the end of the story.

The Nuance Window! Now we've reached the part of the episode called The Nuance Window, where we allow our expert to go to town with the sophisticated hot take. And that means allowing Helen to have three minutes to expound upon your thesis. So I'm going to get the stopwatch up. I'm going to set three minutes and you can launch into it. So when you're ready, three, two, one, go.

I thought I'd talk about plausibility because we tend to think we live in a sceptical age, whereas people in the Middle Ages would believe in almost anything. to think we live in a sceptical age, whereas people in the Middle Ages would believe in almost anything. But in some ways, I think we're more likely to believe or believe in Joan than her contemporaries were. The whole idea of Joan was alarming to them. She was young, she was poor, she was a woman, she wasn't supposed to have a voice. And the stakes for them were incredibly high. If God and the devil were real, it mattered which of them was speaking. Whereas we're more interested in her story, whether or not we believe in God, without really having to worry about the possibility that Satan's on the loose. So we tend to smooth the story over into a single inspiring narrative, and we completely ignore

details that aren't terribly convincing for the story we want to tell. So for example, at her trial, Joan didn't only talk about saints Michael, Catherine and Margaret. She also talked about an angel who she said had walked into the middle of the crowded course at Chinon to give her king a golden crown. Now, this bit doesn't usually make it into the story of Joan as it's told today, and it doesn't because it's not very plausible. Everyone saw an angel who walked in and gave the king a crown and no one other than Joan ever mentioned it. Really? So we just cut that bit out. But when Joan actually said it, it was a huge sticking point,

precisely because her judges didn't think it was plausible either. And in fact, on the morning of her death, Joan admitted it wasn't literally true. It had been a metaphor. She had been the angel and the crown was her promise that she would take the king to his coronation. So these are the kind of difficulties we don't really see in Joan's story anymore, but they help to explain why it took half a millennium for her to become a saint. But there's one more detail in the transcript of her trial that's usually passed over because it doesn't fit with the heroic certainty we want her to have.

On the morning of her death, she was asked again if she'd really heard voices and seen visions, and she said yes. She'd heard voices when the church bells rang and her angels had come to her in a great multitude in the smallest dimension as the tiniest things. And that's a kind of sensory experience of sound and light, sort of peripheral vision that I can begin to imagine. So if we want to get to the real Joan of Arc I think we need to step away from the saint and try to see the contradictory and sometimes, as we all are, implausible human being.

Lovely, thank you very much. So what do you know now? I think we've reached the end of the podcast, which means it's time for a quick quiz, where we put Catherine on the spot a little bit. It's called So What Do You Know Now? To see what you've learned. Oh, no.

I don't want to put pressure on you, but there are 10 questions. You've got 60 seconds. Oh, my God. It's time-centred. This is outrageous. Did they tell you there'd be a test? We did not tell her because otherwise she wouldn't have said yes. Oh, no.

OK. Oh, I feel really stressed. Don't worry. There are no wrong answers apart from the wrong answers. So here we go. Question one. What was the year of her birth for the nearest 10 years?

Oh, 1419? That'll do. Yeah, that's within. Yeah, 1412. In what... What was her nickname? Her nickname? Yeah.

I don't know. Well, the name she called herself. The name she called herself. The maid. The maid of Orleans. Oh, okay. La Pucelle. La Pucelle. Okay, point. Yes. I don't know. Well, the name she called herself. The name she called herself. The maid. The maid of Orleans. Oh, okay. La Pucelle. La Pucelle.

Okay, point. Yes. I just didn't realise that was self-given. Name one of the saints she said visited her. Catherine. Yes. I knew you'd remember that one. How old was she when she had her first vision?

Thirteen. Yes. How did Charles try to catch her out at their first meeting, supposedly? He was like, who's the dude in gold? It's the king. And she was like, I don't think so. Exactly. What was the nickname of the general in charge of the defense of Orléans?

Oh, some poor man called Jean something. That was his name. What was his nickname? Oh, the bastard of Orléans. The bastard of Orléans, absolutely. She was wounded by a crossbow bolt attacking which city? Paris. Paris is correct. How crossbow bolt attacking which city? Paris. Paris is correct.

How many charges were brought against her? Twelve officially. Twelve officially is right. She was burned for heresy and for wearing what item of clothing? Trousers? Yes, trousers. And in 1920, what happened to her? 1920.

Oh, she became a saint. She became a saint. Oh, ten. Good score. Yes, that'll do.. She became a saint. 8 out of 10. Good score. Good score. Yes, that'll do. I mean, what two did I get wrong? You got Nick.

No, I might give you that one, actually. Oh, she got the Poussel. Yeah, 9. 9 out of 10. 9 out of 10. I'll take it. You did very well. Thanks, guys.

You've learned some stuff. We've learned some stuff. I've learned some stuff. Because I mostly, in my head, Joan of Arc is just sort of, she's just a French heroine who charges around being very French we haven't made you speak any French Greg

we ought to be probably for the best to sign off in French she's way more badass than I thought she was she is probably badass I'm very impressed cool

alright well join me next time for another cheerful rummage through the annals of history we'll have another pair of tip top guests and we'll do some more history and if you've enjoyed the show please do make sure

to like, subscribe tell your friends and leave a review online if you like that sort of thing the show is called You're Dead to Me but for, tell your friends and leave a review online if you like that sort of thing. The show is called You're Dead to Me. But for now, I'm going to have to say a thank you and goodbye to my guests, the wonderful Catherine Bohart and Dr. Helen Castor. And now I'm off to go and sing the French national anthem and eat chocolate croissants until I feel sick. Until next time.

Au revoir, mes amis. Au revoir. You're Dead to Me was a Muddy Knees media production for BBC Radio 4. The researcher was Emma Neguse and the producer was Dan Morrell. Russell Cain here and I'm here to tell you about Evil Genius, the BBC Radio 4 podcast where we take icons from history and then decimate them by slinging mud. Think you know everything about Einstein? You don't.

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